The chat happened while the two leaders were in Asunción for the inauguration of President Nicanor Duarte. What Uribe said is not in doubt: he said that Chávez could tell Farc that he, Uribe, could make a peace deal with them in five minutes if they were fed up with his military actions against them.
The Venezuelan vice-president, José Vicente Rangel, hailed the statement as illustrating the key role Chávez could play in achieving peace in Colombia. Yesterday, Uribe claimed that he was not asking Chávez to mediate, nor to involve himself in Colombian affairs. He said that he had asked the Venezuelan not to worry so much about the security measures his government was introducing. Whilst Uribe admitted that he had told Chávez that if the Farc was fed up with the security measures, they could negotiate with him in five minutes, he said that this was not meant to be an invitation to Chávez to mediate.
Uribe's spokesman said that the chat in Asunción was to show that Uribe was still open to negotiations with the Farc. Uribe has said that he would be prepared to allow the UN to mediate, but the Farc rejected that idea. The Farc wants its jailed members released and the restoration of Farclandia, the area temporarily ceded to it by the previous president, Andrés Pastrana.
Uribe does seem keen on a deal with the Farc. He said that he would guartantee that there would be no repeat of the extermination of the Unión Patriótica (UP). This happened after the 1984 truce between the government and the Farc: rightwing death squads killed around 3,000 members of the UP, who were seen as the political wing of the Farc.
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